Catharsis [Novel]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

            The bags are certainly cumbersome as they bump against my legs as I cross the deserted parking lot, but I still wouldn’t say they are heavy.  Glancing down at my burden as I walk, I can tell they must be heavy by the strain being put on the plastic handles.  They're heavy, but I don't feel it.  I might as well be carrying bags stuffed with helium-filled balloons covered in goose feathers (Ok, that's certainly an exaggeration.  I can feel the weight of the bags, it's just much more negligible than I would have expected.) for all I can tell.

            "This is definitely a side effect I could learn to live with," I mumble as I reach the far side of the street.  The last several days have been far from pleasant, but I have to admit there have been some interesting diversions to help distract me.  A well of unending strength is a welcome relief after spending my previous sixteen years as a - let's call it “size-challenged” - girl who could do pull ups in P.E. class, but they were nothing to write home about.  I was too stubborn and strong-willed to ever be "weak", but I certainly wasn't making many boys flinch when I punched them in the shoulder after flirty banter gone awry. 

            The best reaction I ever got was a "Hey, you punch kind of well.  If you had any strength, then that might actually hurt".  But even spending the last few years taking Krav classes with my dad it’s only allowed me to hit better.  Not harder.  Our instructor kept telling me I had good form, and if I'd just hit the weights and bulk up a bit then I'd have a chance of being a solid slugger.  But that wasn't for me.  Krav I can do.  Mobile. Active.  Fun.  Lifting weights?  Ugh.

            But now?  Now I think I could pull off some of the hits that my instructor always wanted me to do.  If I hit some of those boys with the strength that allows me to carry these bags and not even notice their weight?  Yeah.  Now, it'd be a whole different game.

            Maybe when I get back to the warehouse tonight I can try and set up a punching bag of some kind and see what I can do with it.  These plastic bags could probably come in handy if I filled them with sand or dirt from the back lot behind the place.  I could fill them, tie them off and hang them from a doorway.  That would help me let off steam and burn away some worry and fear.

            The more I think about it as I walk, the better it sounds. 

            Only one problem, I realize: my hunger.  I'll have to work to make sure I can keep it contained.  It's one thing to test my strength and see what it will allow me to do.  It'll be quite another if I just use the punching bag to work myself into a murderous froth of blood lust as I push myself further than I should.  On the bright side, though, it doesn't feel like using my strength to carry these bags is pushing my abilities at all.  So maybe if I'm careful, then my strength issue won’t be an...issue (Smoothly done there, me.).

            Stopping suddenly, I mutter, "Oh, poopy socks!"  Something's wrong.  I don't recognize this area at all.  These buildings aren't the same ones I passed on the way to the store.

            "Where am I?"  I ask and look around for any kind of familiar landmarks that might catch my attention, but I'm left with nothing.  I'm in the right part of the city; I didn't walk long enough to completely leave the area, and the few buildings I see around me are run down and mostly abandoned.  This has to be my new neighborhood, but how am I supposed to find my warehouse among all these monstrous dilapidated wrecks.

            Closing my eyes, I breathe deeply and try to retrace my steps.  If I can figure out where I went wrong, then maybe I can backtrack and...

            "...and Holy Glorious mother of mighty crap!" I exclaim in a whisper (This is about as rough and tumble as my rebellious expletives get.  If my parents knew I just combined something holy with something found in a toilet then there's a good chance they would...I don't know.  But it'd be unpleasant and repetitive, I can tell you that much.).  With my memory, not only can I accurately retrace my steps since leaving the store, but I can mentally map out my current path and see how it went awry from the one that would have led me back to the warehouse. 

            My mental picture of the trip I just took (And it’s one I don't fully remember, by the way, since I was distracted and day-dreaming.) is as clear in my mind as if I were watching it on a TV.  I can rewind and fast forward my journey all the way back to the store, through the store, back across the parking lot and all the way to the warehouse where I left Lazzy.  The ability to run my trip through my memory like it's a recorded show is disorienting at first, but I quickly get used to it.

            "Ok," I say out loud.  "This is impressive.  I knew my memory was improved, but this is outstanding."

            After running through the memory a few times (partly just for the sheer thrill of it), I figure out where I deviated and the quickest way to get myself back home.  I'm too far east of the warehouse, so I turn back to my right for the shortest path.  Which leads to a small problem.

            My fastest route home takes me down an alley between two dark and most likely deserted buildings.  An alley that before a week ago would have caused me to tinkle myself at the mere thought of walking down it.  It's the kind of alley you see in movies where super heroes stop heinous crimes from occurring deep in the bowels of the criminal infested city.  It's not the kind of alley petite, pretty (Hey!  It's my story.) Hispanic girls wander down at night.  At least not wander down and live to tell about it.

            And then I laugh.  I laugh because I realize that's the old me worrying.  The me that didn't have the physical gifts of strength and eidetic memory (Apparently that's the official name for a photographic memory, or for whatever I have now.) and hyper alert hearing and see-in-the-dark eyes.  For me, this alley isn't even a challenge.

            It's the fastest way home, and it's the route I'm going to take.

            And with that small decision my life changes forever.